March 9 (Bloomberg) -- Ten Mexican nationals, linked to a
violent gang, have been indicted in the murders of three people
connected with the American consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico,
the Justice Department said.

The 10 are members and associates of the Barrio Azteca
gang, which operates in the U.S. and Mexico, the department said
in a statement today. Seven are in custody in Mexico and
authorities are searching for the other three, according to the
statement.

A consular employee, her husband and the husband of a
Mexican citizen who works at the consulate were shot to death in
March 2010 in two incidents in Ciudad Juarez, across the border
from El Paso, Texas. The motive isn’t clear, said Lanny Breuer,
the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice
Department’s criminal division.

“It could be as simple as mistaken identity,” Breuer said
at a news conference in Washington. “Whatever the motivation
is, the alleged brutality of the murders was really quite
extraordinary.”

Twenty-five other people associated with the gang were
indicted in connection with offenses including money laundering
and drug trafficking, according to the Justice Department. Of
those, 21 are in custody in the U.S. or Mexico, and authorities
are seeking the remaining four, said Laura Sweeney, a Justice
Department spokeswoman.

The grand jury indictment against the gang members was
unsealed in U.S. District Court in El Paso. American authorities
are seeking extradition of suspects to the U.S.

Transnational Organization

The gang began in the late 1980s in prisons and expanded
into a “transnational criminal organization,” according to the
statement. It is based in west Texas and Juarez, and in prisons
in the U.S. and Mexico, according to the department. The gang
enriches its members and associates through drug trafficking,
money laundering, extortion and murder, according to the Justice
Department.

Barrio Azteca is “one of the most powerful and brutal
gangs operating along the U.S.-Mexico border,” Shawn Henry,
executive assistant director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, said at the news conference.

To increase its power, the gang formed an alliance with the
Vicente Carrillo-Fuentes drug trafficking organization in
Mexico, according to the Justice Department. Barrio Azteca
conducted “enforcement operations” against rivals of the
trafficking operation, which provides illicit drugs to the gang
at a discount, the statement said.